When war means home

What does a refugee make being a refugee? What if we change the tag and we call him/her a part of the society?

These were some of the question the video report group had at the beginning of the international project MediaArt, which took place in Yerevan, capital of Armenia, from the 20th till 28th of March, 2017.

Under the title "Social Justice", 5 young participants from Ukraine, Poland, Armenia and Germany started an investigation and, after that, a video report about how the situation in Armenia is, focus on Syrian refugees.

The results found were really surprising for everyone. Armenia, a country with the size of Belgium, has the 3rd largest number of Syrian refugees in the world. "It is a really unexpected amount, if we are talking about a country like Armenia. Most of the every day news is focus on Europe and European countries as Germany, and after talking with refugees from here (Armenia), we found out the conditions in this country are even worse because Armenia did not receive any European economic support", one of the members affirms.

Many interviews from different part of the society compose a 6 minutes report, which shows how the crisis and war, as the Syrian one since 2011, sometimes also means coming back home. Most of the refugees from Syria who are in Armenia now, are Armenians. Actually they call themselves Syrian-Armenians. After the Armenian genocide which took place in 1915, many Armenians ran away from Turkey to Syria. And this is part of the key that this report shows.

"The situation in Armenia is not the best, there are not so many job offers or money, but we give them our land, their land, the chance to come back to their own country and create a new life here, in Armenia", claim one of the interviewee. "And this is the main reason, we are not refugees, because we are coming back to our mother land".